Do People Need to understand their Past for them to live a Fulfilling Life?
Everyone has a past: A person’s past strongly influences the way they live their present life hence a massive influence on their future too. Many people struggle to live fulfilling lives. It has been advanced that a failure to understand one’s past has a strong hand in this. This paper attempts to reveal the truth in this advancement by basing the argument on the life of Garnet Raven, the main character is a novel by Richard Wagamese – Keeper’N me.
Garnet Raven, is the main character in Keeper’ N me, a book written by Richard Wagamese. He was born to aboriginal parents in White Dog Reserve of Canada. Naturally, his Asian parents left him and his siblings under the care of their grandmother. However, the child services of Canada saw this as stressful to the aged in society hence separated most aboriginal children from their families. Raven was not lucky; he was lured by chocolate and taken from his home aged two years. The children services gave him out to live with various foster families. At the age of sixteen, Raven decides to run away. He survives on his voyages by pretending not to be aboriginal. He later settles in Toronto where he meets Lonnie Flowers and he moves in with Lonnie’s family. Soon, Raven starts to act and dress like Lonnie. He is later arrested and sentenced to a five-years jail term after being found guilty of drug-dealing. While in custody, he is contacted by his brother, Stanley, and the two strike a relationship. Raven heads to his aboriginal home after being released a year later. There, Garnet meets Keeper, a friend to his grandfather, who teaches him the traditions of his people and gives him various advices. He also meets and makes peace with Jackie. Later, Raven’s expertise and knowledge of radios benefits the people of White Dog massively. Garnet later adheres to traditional religious demands and goes into the forest to meditate for a week, on his arrival, he is welcomed by a great celebration organized by his mother specially to celebrate his achievements.
From the story of Garnet Raven, we find a young who was totally unhappy with his life. The man did not like and did not understand why he had to keep changing foster families during his childhood. He was also unhappy with his aboriginal identity thus he kept concealing it. His unhappiness led him to copy Lonnie’s style; a step which made him look awkward and an outcast back in White Dog. His new life made him to fall into the trap of drug-dealing with imprisonment as a consequence. On arrival to White Dog, Raven was led through the events that led to his separation from the family, his life as a childhood and the customs of his people. Knowledge of this past events made Raven a much more fulfilled person and a person who was very useful to society. This is evidenced by the celebration that was organized by his mother to celebrate his achievements after he had gone to meditate in the forest. Moreover, he makes peace with Jacky after he understood the events that led to Jacky’s feelings towards him.
However, the knowledge of his past was not wholly the cause of his newly-found happiness in White Dog. The knowledge about radios that he had acquired outside Raven was also key in his happiness. Understanding his past might not have strongly influenced his happiness.
The story of Garnet Raven reveals just how important a person’s past is important in their later life. For one to live a fulfilling life, understanding their identity and the past events that have continually shaped this identity and their personality is very key. Raven would never have been a happy and celebrated young man if Keeper and Jacky would not have helped him to understand the events of his own past and the history of his people.
